2006 Star World Championship

[Fried]

The link below leads you to the page from which you can download either a high or low resolution version of the slideshow I photographed and produced for the 2006 Star World Championship held in San Francisco Sep 28-Oct 8th.

http://www.friedbits.com/PhotoBits/Sailing...eshow/index.htm

The show was initially seen at the awards banquet and is now being viewed all over the world via download. P2E makes it possible!

This is my 3rd slideshow. I used v 4.48 and I'm looking forward to upgrading my P2E skills so I can take advantage of the new pan and zoom capabilities. Demand for a DVD version has been high for all my slideshows but I haven't taken the plunge as of now.

Any comments or suggestions are most welcome. Thank you everyone for such a terrific tool and for all your help!

Fried Elliott

Dallas

[ronwil]

An excellent production with great impact. So many close-ups of the competitors of outstanding quality. The organisers and participants must be delighted with the sequence. I don't think there is anything in Version 5.0, great as it is, which could have added to the emjoyment. Thanks Fried.

Ron [uK]

[sperrinejr]

That is outstanding!

I have a question, how did you time the music to the slides at the first part of the show? Was it a lot of constantly previewing the show to get it right, or is there a shorter method? Great timing of music and images.

[Hemjr]

Fried,

I downloaded the smaller file. The pictures were great and the synchronization to the music was excellent. I agree with an earlier post theat I question wheather it could have been inmproved much with the new version. Thanks for sharing.

Howard

[thedom]

Thanks Fried,

Really nice show, very dynamic and perfectly synchronised.

I don't think there is anything in Version 5.0, great as it is, which could have added to the emjoyment.

Sorry, Ron, but I don't agree for two reasons :

- nothing is perfect, things can always be improved.

- I could easily imagine :

. slow pans on the second part which is much more quiet. It would make a even nicer transition with part 1 and 3.

. fast and "aggresive" zooms on part 4 to make things even more dynamic.

. more photo compositions. Instead of always a single picture by slide, several pictures by slide, especially at the end.

But once again, really good work just as it is now.

[Ken Cox]

Fried

"but I haven't taken the plunge as of now"

if you can make a web page and or take picts like you have shown us there is no reason why you are holding back on making a dvd

quoting Larry the Cable Guy "GET'ER DONE"

IMHO your shows are just fine as they are

ken

[Fried]

Wow, such terrific words and encouragement from everyone! It really makes me feel good. Great motivation! Thanks!

I like all the ideas for pan/zoom sketched out by thedom. Also, because I've decided to stay with the 4:3 crop on all slides, there are shots I don't use in the slideshow because they're really suited to being cropped as a panorama or portrait. If I could crop those as 4:3 and then use the pan/zoom to traverse the area of the image that is important, then I could probably use some of those. For example, starting line shots don't have the impact in the show they could have if I could traverse the line of boats with a pan. The D2X takes 12MP so I've got lots of pixels to work with on some of the scenic or setup shots. Beside the learning curve, the problem I've got is very limited time at the venue after shooting all day, downloading, sorting, editing... so I'm not sure how much I can squeeze in.

I definitely need to figure out how to make the DVD. What I really want to do is make a DVD that has not only the slideshow but all the photo albums for a given year as well. I'm not sure how to approach such a project.

To the question about how I synchronize the slides and the music, I thought it might be useful to expand a bit on my workflow to let others know what is working for me as well as get feedback for improvement.

1. Starting about six weeks before the event, I start looking for music. I know the location and I try to pick something with a bit of local flavor. I need four pieces: a fanfare, a cool or bouncy song, a mellow one, and a high energy one. I have a background in music that favors jazz and classical so that influences my selection. I try to avoid well known songs and I watch the lyrics (which eliminates a huge number of songs) because the audience is very diverse. I find most of my music on www.cdbaby.com

2. I use Audacity to create a single music track. Usually this involves cuts, fades, and gaps. In this show every piece except Mr. Big Stuff was edited. This takes me about 3 hours to get it perfect.

3. I then make a CD of the sound track and listen to it in my car for several days. I make sure I like the length of the gaps and transitions and that the cuts don't destroy the compositions. I also start visualizing the show. The mellow section is always the most difficult because the image is up there longer and the music is "down" so the images and transitions have to be very compelling.

4. Once I'm satisifed with the soundtrack, I create a "dummy" show using old slides I've numbered 001.jpg to xxx.jpg and start inserting the timing marks and transition effects. Every slide is set manually. Its very tedious but the prior visualization helps alot and I've usually got a pretty good idea by now what I want to see. Again, my music background helps since once I get the first few transitions in place, I can usually pick up the pattern for the rest of a song. My physics background also helps since I can sort of pick up the pattern in the waveform. This takes me about 3-4 hours and I work on it in chunks over a weekend. I respectfully submit this is an area of P2E that could benefit from improvement.

5. Now I watch this show for about a week. I make adjustments and monitor the slide count. I can generate about 40 high quality photos per day at an event. When I'm happy with the dummy show, I write a script in a spreadsheet, notating which slides have special lyrical content or musical emphasis, and the ones that are credits, landscapes, setups, etc. If I'm on schedule this is all done prior to my arrival at the event.

6. During the event, at the end of each day, I download all my RAW files (500-900 per day), immediately discard about half and get down to 40-60 selects. In addition to the daily shooting, early in the week I'm working pretty hard to get the credits sorted out and the landscape shots scouted out and captured. The credits involve alot of work. I set those up in Illustrator and place the .psd files as needed. The landscapes make for some late nights and early mornings.

7. Each night I correct color, straighten, and crop in Bridge. I save all as .psd files and clean up blemishes and fix contrast or shadow/highlights in Photoshop. Including the downloading and ranking, all this takes about 3-4 hours each evening. I have Photoshop automation I run overnight that opens each .psd and then removes noise (Noise Ninja), sharpens, and converts to a 1024x768 jpeg. At this stage, I've got three folders: a NEF, a PSD, and a JPEG all containing files with the same naming convention, along with the fourth folder "Images" containing the sequentially named dummy jpegs P2E is using. (I also make backups of all folders every morning on my portable drive).

8. Usually about the midway point in the event, I start replacing files in the "Images" folder with files from the JPEG folder. I look at my script, decide where I want a particular slide (or range of slides) to go in the show, rename (in Windows or Bridge, not in P2E) those in the JPEG folder to match their new names in the Images folder and then overwrite the dummy slide files with the actual event jpeg files. I keep doing this throughout the week until all the dummies have been replaced. I have found this is the safest and simplest way to keep everything as setup since by this stage I'm running on fumes and prone to making mistakes.

9. The evening prior to the screening I try to have the entire show finished. Then the day of the show I can choose and insert a few winners or not. In this case, we had very little wind until the last day and so I wound up dropping 50 slides into the show at the very end of the event. Ten minutes to spare.

[Ken Cox]

Fried

"I definitely need to figure out how to make the DVD. What I really want to do is make a DVD that has not only the slideshow but all the photo albums for a given year as well. I'm not sure how to approach such a project."

Hawk has a method of doing this, maybe he will jump in -- will send it to you off list

ken

[Hawk]

Fried

Let me add my compliments to an outstanding presentation, as PTE users we can well imaging the workload you had putting this all together.

Demand for a DVD version has been high for all my slideshows but I haven't taken the plunge as of now.

I definitely need to figure out how to make the DVD. What I really want to do is make a DVD that has not only the slideshow but all the photo albums for a given year as well. I'm not sure how to approach such a project.

We personally are using Nero 7 ( latest Burning rom 7.5.1.1 ) and there are other programs that will allow you to add separate folders before the burn which could contain the .EXE, all images of your show along with the .PTE for backup or editing. In version 5 you could add the backup.zip. ( all in one neat package on the DVD disc )

In Nero this is accomplished by using Nero Vision to encode and write the DVD – Video_TS folder files to your hard drive. ( this is the time consuming part )

Once the files are created, Nero Burning Rom can be opened and the extra folders can be added to contain your images and any other files. The burn procedure is rather fast.

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BOY ! – would I like to see this show done with 1920 x 1080 cropped images as widescreen HDTV 16:9 and viewed on a 42 “ plasma. ( was a projector used at the awards banquet ? )

Something to consider is the file size, but with the sharpness of your images a ( 1 pass ) encoding might well be acceptable to cut down on time.

For example I just finished a Car Show final .EXE was 42 meg. Using images 1920 x 1080 with average file size 700 KB and 3 MP3’s using 16:9 HDTV settings in version 5 ( 2-Pass – High Quality settings in Nero ) this took me 4.5 hours to encode.

Your high-resolution file is 92 meg !!! ( So this will be an extremely long encoding time ).

[Fried]

BOY ! – would I like to see this show done with 1920 x 1080 cropped images as widescreen HDTV 16:9 and viewed on a 42 “ plasma.

Me too! That sounds fantastic. Okay, thats my goal. I just need to learn how to get there from where I am.

I guess the first step/question is do I recrop/resize the original digital negatives to produce 1920x1080 jpegs? The psd files are currently cropped 4:3 in Bridge preserving original pixels and then I use save for web to resize and produce 1024x768 JPEG for P2E.

I bought ULead DVD 5 a few weeks ago. Tonight I used it to make an MPEG out of the slideshow. That should mollify some of my Mac users.

The slideshow has been downloaded 430 times since the afternoon of the 10th.

An LCD projector was used at the trophy dinner.

[Hawk]

Fried

I guess the first step/question is do I recrop/resize the original digital negatives to produce 1920x1080 jpegs?

Yes however there are a few things you may want to consider and plan ahead before attempting such a large file.

Let me gather my thoughts and I will e-mail you over the week-end.

[LumenLux]

Fried, your presentation has well done written all over it. Very enjoyable as well. I don't know if you sell the show or sell follow-up photos or what? I am just thinking that many of your subjects would enjoy a longer look at some of the photos. I realize the sync'd, snappy pace is important for the show's appeal, but have you considered a version where the viewers would have the navigation option?

Thank you for taking time to describe your work-flow. It is very appreciated. I, for one, would sincerely like to see other presentations you have done if that were to be possible.

Thank you again for sharing your fine work.

[Fried]

Thank you LumenLux and thanks Ralph for the offline suggestions!

I am not familiar with the Navigation option but sounds like something I need to check out. On this last show, I just made a photo album available (I use JAlbum and included that on the same page with the show download.) It would be good, however, for viewers to be able to do things like pause and continue so they can explain or discuss something.

My two other slideshows are on my Snipe page (see Slideshow links under 2006 and 2005 Nationals):

http://www.friedbits.com/PhotoBits/Sailing/Snipe/index.php

At the time they looked great but looking at them now, I can see room for improvement. It is a learning process, which is one of the things that keeps it fun. One thing I learned was to pack more slides into the show. Many people watch the show repeatedly and something that may flash by initially they watch for and catch over time, which seems to make it a bit more fun. Following a suggestion made here concerning the first show, I now crop to the same aspect ratio. Fortunately, my "yield" has gotten to the point I can do this.

I do not charge anything for the show and sailors can order prints at a nominal cost. Two reasons: my primary goal is to develop one-design sailing and my own portfolio, and the second is the issue of music royalties. I am the President of a data sevices company by day and have little interest in becoming a professional photographer (with all the attendant headaches) although several of my photos have been published or used by gear manufacturers for promotional purposes and for those I charge normal free lance rates.

In thinking about "whats next" I think based on Ralph's suggestions I'm going to try over the winter to do a widescreen HDTV show that is more like a class promotional piece and less of an event piece. Both classes are really wanting something like that. There is also interest in a calendar. Too much to do!